In many neighborhoods of the largest city, Yangon, on Saturday and Sunday, witnesses reported sounds of gunfire and stun grenades. Terrified residents watched and filmed as security forces raided residential areas of the city and made several night arrests. Residents said Reuters police fired and did not motivate the arrests, which continued in the early hours of Sunday.
“On the night of his arrest, Khin Maung Latt was tortured to death in his cell,” AAPP said in a press release on Sunday. Reports of bruises on Khin Maung Latt’s head and body have raised suspicions that he was abused, NLD MP Ba Myo Thein told Reuters.
CNN cannot independently verify this report and the details surrounding Khin Maung Latt’s death are not immediately clear.
Khin Maung Latt worked as a campaign manager for one of the two Muslim parliamentarians elected in 2020. The mourners gathered in Yangon on Sunday for his funeral.
Fears of hospital occupation
Over the weekend, Myanmar troops were seen occupying hospitals and universities in Yangon and Mandalay, according to local media Myanmar Now. Activists fear that their presence could impede treatment for injured protesters or allow for arrests.
An official of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at least five hospitals had been occupied on Monday.
“We have received credible reports of hospitals in Myanmar today, including at least four hospitals in parts of Yangon and at least one in Mandalay,” said James Rodehaver, OHCHR’s Myanmar team leader.
“Such activity is completely unacceptable. Hospitals are locations under the protection of international humanitarian law.”
On Monday, the international group Doctors for Human Rights condemned “the invasion and occupation of public hospitals and the lack of excessive force against civilians.”
“If it was not obvious before, it is absolutely clear now: the Myanmar army will not stop violating the rights of the people of Myanmar until the international community takes decisive action to prevent and explain these outrageous acts,” the group said in a statement. .
Human rights doctors say the military’s occupation of hospitals is “a violation of international law – which only serves to further undermine a health care system already attacked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent military coup.” .
“This large-scale siege of hospitals follows several days of serious injuries and civilian casualties and can be interpreted as a direct attempt to prevent access to civilian care,” said a statement from Sandra Mon of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights. Man from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“There is also a threat to assist doctors to warn them against further treatment of injured protesters. Myanmar army has impunity despite their deliberate acts of night terror. We may see an increase in national military retaliation against protesters peaceful and doctors in the coming days come “.
Myanmar police said security forces “maintain” various universities and hospitals across the country “for the benefit of the people,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
Myanmar workers’ unions called a nationwide strike on Monday as part of a civil disobedience campaign against the coup. Eighteen unions from major industries, including agriculture, energy, mining, construction, food and transport, have called for a “complete expansion of Myanmar’s economy”.
“Myanmar workers’ organizations are united in support of a nationwide broad stop against the military coup and for the future of democracy in Myanmar,” a joint statement said. “No one can force any citizen of Myanmar to work; now we are not slaves of the military junta and we will never be.”
Meanwhile, women’s groups demanded that men show up on Monday to mark International Women’s Day and “fly” their Htamains (sarongs) as part of the anti-junta movement. The images showed women marching with their htamains flying like flags behind them or hanging over the streets in front of the barricades.
As protests continued Monday, at least two people died in the northern city of Myitkyina after police opened fire on protesters, according to Reuters, which quoted witnesses. Several others were injured in the violence.
Weekend of violence
The call for a strike follows massive protests on Sunday that were violently suppressed by the military, according to Myanmar Now. Reports said security forces fired live and rubber bullets at cities across the country, including in Mandalay and Nyaung-U – close to the ancient city and the UNESCO-listed Bagan site.
Myanmar military personnel were filmed beating a man on the streets of Mandalay, and in Nyaung-U, Reuters footage showed security forces in riot gear, with street-going shields firing live and rubber bullets in time. what the protesters were covering.
Images from the local press show bullets in the hands of protesters who were used against them. Eyewitnesses told CNN that police also held small daggers, forcing protesters to disperse.
At least 1,790 people have been detained, arrested, charged or convicted by the military junta since taking power, according to the AAPP surveillance group.
AAPP said the junta “intentionally terrorizes residents with live ammunition in Yangon.”
“After brutal crackdowns yesterday (Saturday) on peaceful police and military protests, brutal acts continued into the night, raids on residential areas and houses, gunfire and illegal searches and detentions,” AAPP said.
The deadly violence against protesters has attracted hundreds of thousands of people to join demonstrations and civil disobedience campaigns in cities and towns across the country. A handful of them were police personnel, who broke ranks to join the protesters.
Last week, an official from the western state of Chin – which borders India and Bangladesh – called for the detention and return of eight police personnel seeking refuge in the Indian state of Mizoram.
In a letter to his Indian state counterpart, the deputy commissioner of the Falam district of Myanmar said that they should be returned “in order to maintain friendly relations”. According to a letter obtained by CNN, of the eight officials, four are twenty years old.
Speaking at a news conference, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said: “From now on, we will see the facts. We will come back after more details.”
Srivastava said India was closely monitoring the situation in Myanmar. “We are in talks with partner countries in this regard. We said earlier that the issue must be resolved peacefully,” he said.
Australia, meanwhile, said on Monday it had suspended a bilateral defense co-operation program with Myanmar’s army following the coup and “rising violence and rising death toll,” said Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
The program was limited to non-combatant areas, such as English language training, but was criticized by rights groups for involvement in the military, despite documented abuses and conflicts in ethnic states. Critics also cited the 2017 military offensive against Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State, which forced 740,000 people to flee to the vicinity of Bangladesh and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
Payne said in a statement that Australia’s aid program would be redirected to “the immediate humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable and poor, including the Rohingyas and other ethnic minorities”.
Philip Wang, Zahid Mahmood, Vedika Sud and Sarah Faidell contributed to the reporting.